


Captive Audience

by LadyRhiyana



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen, Kingsguard, Robert's drunken ramblings, Warm and fuzzy feelings [sort of]
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 23:46:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16670695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRhiyana/pseuds/LadyRhiyana
Summary: “I’ve always wondered what you white brothers get up to when you’re not on duty,” he says. “Surely you don’t spend all of your time praying and perfecting your swordplay.”**[Or; drunk, Robert wanders into White Sword Tower]





	Captive Audience

**Author's Note:**

> So, I have a sneaking fondness for Robert. He had a sense of humour, if nothing else. But this little one shot was inspired by the scene in episode 1.3 where Robert is swapping old war stories with Ser Barristan and then can't help but taunt Jaime, asking what Aerys' last words were. I don't think Jaime ever bit back like that in the books, but I certainly enjoyed watching Robert's reaction.

White Sword Tower rises pale and pristine beside the other towers of the keep. Drunk and staggering after feasting long into the night at Ned’s tournament, Robert slams open the pale weirwood door and starts up the winding stairs, his two white-cloaked shadows Ser Meryn Trant and Ser Mandon Moore exchanging glances as they follow him up. 

On the first landing he comes to a spacious common area with a large window open to the warm air, the stone walls hung with white hangings. Ser Preston Greenfield and Ser Arys Oakheart are seated on a bench at a long table, idly throwing dice for handfuls of coppers. Off duty and out of their white-scaled armour and snow-white cloaks, they wear surcoats and breeches just like any other knights. 

As he bursts into the room they rise instantly to their feet. “Your Grace!” Oakheart says, his hand flying to his hip where his sword no longer hangs; he’s armed with only a belt dagger. 

“Oh, never mind all that,” Robert says, waving impatiently. “Tell me where I can find the bloody privy!”

**

His business done, he re-emerges into the common room. Part of him is aware that he is intruding on the private lives of the Kingsguard, but he’s filled with the blithe confidence that comes of being roaring drunk. 

“I’ve always wondered what you white brothers get up to when you’re not on duty,” he says, wandering over to the table, to a half-empty flagon of red wine and a depleted bowl of fruit. Idly, he helps himself to a glass of wine. “Surely you don’t spend all of your time praying and perfecting your swordplay.” 

He drops his bulk into a sturdy wooden chair by the hearth with a great sigh, stretches his booted feet towards the fire. 

Greenfield and Oakheart exchange glances. “Not all of our time, your Grace,” Greenfield ventures. 

“Ha,” Robert says. “I knew it. I don’t trust men who are too perfect. And you Kingsguard, ever-present, ever-discreet, you’re always so damned noble in your perfect white-scaled armour and snowy white cloaks –”

Trant and Moore, still on duty, are standing at attention – one outside on the stairs, the other by the open window. Greenfield and Oakheart have abandoned their dice and are listening to his rambling with patient interest. The white brothers have been a fixture of his life for years: he likes to bait them and ruffle their composure because he can, because they’re so damn noble and sanctimonious, because they’re a captive audience and he’s the king and because he damn well pleases. 

He likes to drink and tell them wild stories of his youth; he talks about hunting with Moore and Greenfield, about whoring with Trant and Oakheart, about feasting with Blount; he swaps old battle stories with Ser Barristan Selmy and he baits and taunts the Kingslayer, who only bows his head and smiles enigmatically – except for when he bites back, his eyes dark and filled with secrets. 

Sometimes he forgets that his white-cloaked shadows are more than a captive audience for his taunting and his drunken stories. Sometimes they’re so unobtrusive that he forgets their presence entirely, only noticing them when they shift their position, their armour ringing softly and their cloaks shushing on the floor. He wonders if Aerys was so used to his own white-cloaked shadows that he didn’t see murder in young Jaime Lannister’s eyes until it was too late. 

There’s an oil-stained rag and a whetstone on a side table by Robert’s chair, and a long, wicked dagger, the leather sheath tooled with a snarling lion’s head. Robert knows what that dagger can do; he’d watched the Kingslayer wield it during the siege of Pyke. At least once, it had been to save Robert’s life.

“Ah, curse it all,” he says. “Never mind. I’m drunk, and you’re off-duty.”

“The Kingsguard is never off duty in the king’s presence, your grace,” Oakheart says. 

Robert only laughs.

**

He must have closed his eyes. He is dimly aware of the background murmur of low conversation, the roll and the clatter of dice and the smell of oiled steel and leather; it takes him back to the days of his youth, when he was a warrior to be feared and respected, not a fat fool set on drinking and whoring himself to an early grave.

Footsteps sound on the stairs outside the room, and Robert hears Barristan Selmy’s voice. “What are you doing here, Ser Meryn? Why aren’t you guarding the king?”

Trant answers, his voice low and inaudible; they speak for a few moments longer before Robert is aware of the Lord Commander standing over him. 

“Your grace,” Ser Barristan says. “You should retire to your own chambers.”

“Piss on that,” Robert scowls, not bothering to open his eyes. “I’m too damned drunk. Unless you want to carry me down the stairs.”

As he slowly drifts into sleep, Robert is aware of a low-voiced discussion in the room. He really should get back to his own chambers, he knows – if nothing else, Cersei will be unbearable – but he’s too damned comfortable. 

And so he stays.

** 

Murmured voices wake him the next morning: the worried, boyish tones of his useless squire Lancel and the deeper, drawling voice of Robert’s good-brother. 

“…leave him to sleep it off,” the Kingslayer says. “You’ll never get him down the stairs otherwise.”

“He sent me off to get a breastplate stretcher yesterday,” Lancel complains. “I spent hours trying to find one!” 

“Did he?” The Kingslayer’s voice is distinctly amused. “Well, next time, cuz, you’ll know better than to be so easily gulled.”

Lancel makes a noise of disgust and storms off down the stairs, and Robert finally forces his heavy eyes open. Ser Jaime Lannister is wearing a white linen shirt and doeskin breeches, unshaven, unarmoured and unarmed; he’s sitting in a chair under the window, slowly and patiently using a whetstone and an oiled rag on his blade. The same whetstone and rag, Robert realizes, that were lying on the table by his chair. He must have leaned over Robert as he slept to retrieve them. 

“Good morning, your grace,” the Kingslayer says, when Robert starts up. He’s smirking, as always; his hair is mussed, and there’s a dark bruise on his collarbone. Robert wondered whose bed he’d slipped out of the night before. “I trust you slept well?”

He had slept well, Robert thinks. Damned well, for a night in a wooden chair rather than his own bed, and deeply, if the Kingslayer had managed to get so close without waking him. Most of it was the drink, he knew, but some part of it at least must have been his surroundings, and the knowledge that the white brothers guarded him as he slept.

Gods, he must be getting sentimental. 

**


End file.
